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We report here a comprehensive study on structural, magnetic, caloric and electronic properties of the monoclinic phase of double perovskite compound Tm2CoMnO6 (TCMO) in its polycrysttaline format. Magnetic measurements confirm the presence of thermal hysteresis in magnetization indicates towards a first order magnetic transition at its critical point (Tc). Our study finds the metamagnetic jump in isothermal M(H) at 2 K that signifies the rare earth spin allignement in loop cycling above a certain critical field. This jump is only present at very low T that dies out as the T raises. M(H) measurements at different temperature stipulate that Co2+ and Mn4+ do not order completely inspite of strong ferromagnetic correlation that is against the previous study on TCMO. The concurrence of structral, magnetic and dielectric anomaly at Tc suggest its possible magnetostructural copuling. We found a high dielectric constant (2700) in TCMO and the Maxwell-Wagner electrial loss spectrum analysis hints towards a long range hopping mechanism. Sizeable magnetocaloric effect in terms of entropy change across the transition temperatures has been obtained from heat capacity data that clearly corroborates its intrinsic behaviour.

The chiral magneto-electric compound Ni3TeO6 is investigated through temperature-dependent synchrotron-based powder x-ray diffraction and x-ray absorption spectroscopy between 15 to 300 K. Our work provides direct evidence for the exchange-striction in the material around the concomitant onset point of collinear antiferromagnetic and magneto-electric phases. The x-ray absorption near edge spectra and x-ray photoelectron spectra show that the sample consists of both Ni2+ and Ni3+ ions in the lattice. The ionic state of Ni is found to be quite robust, and it is largely independent of the preparation route. Additionally, the minority Te4+ state is found to coexist with the majority Te6+ state, which may arise from the charge disproportionation between Ni and Te ions (Ni2+ + Te6+ --> Ni3+ + Te4+). The observed mixed valency of Ni is also confirmed by the total paramagnetic moment per Ni atom in the system. This mixed valency in the metal ions and the exchange-striction may be attributed to the observed magneto-electric effect in the system., 10 pages, 8 figures

The quantum spin liquid (QSL) is an exotic phase of magnetic materials where the spins continue to fluctuate without any symmetry breaking down to zero temperature. Among the handful reports of QSL with spin $S\ge$1, examples with magnetic ions on a three-dimensional magnetic lattice are extremely rare since both larger spin and higher dimension tend to suppress quantum fluctuations. In this work, we offer a new strategy to achieve 3-D QSL with high spin by utilizing two types of transition metal ions, both are magnetically active but located at crystallographically inequivalent positions. We design a 3-D magnetic system Ba$_3$NiIr$_2$O$_9$ consisting of interconnected corner shared NiO$_6$ octahedra and face shared Ir$_2$O$_9$ dimer, both having triangular arrangements in \textit{a-b} plane. X-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements confirm the presence of Ni$^{2+}$ ($S$=1). Our detailed thermodynamic and magnetic measurements reveal that this compound is a realization of gapless QSL state down to at least 100 mK. Ab-initio calculations find a strong magnetic exchange between Ir and Ni sublattices and in-plane antiferromagnetic coupling between the dimers, resulting in dynamically fluctuating magnetic moments on both the Ir and Ni sublattice., Comment: 4 Figures

We report results of simultaneous x-ray reflectivity and grazing incidence x-ray fluorescence measurements in combination with x-ray standing wave assisted depth resolved near edge x-ray absorption measurements to reveal new insights on chemical speciation of W in a W-B4C superlattice structure. Interestingly, our results show existence of various unusual electronic states for the W atoms especially those sitting at the surface and interface boundary of a thin film medium as compared to that of the bulk. These observations are found to be consistent with the results obtained using first principles calculations. Unlike the conventional x-ray absorption measurements the present approach has an advantage that it permits the determination of depth resolved chemical nature of an element in the thin layered materials at atomic length scale resolutions., Comment: 9 figures

Nanostructures of Titanium oxide (TiO2) are being studied for many promising applications, e.g., solar photovoltaics, solar water splitting for H2 fuel generation etc., due to their excellent photo-catalytic properties. We have synthesized low-dimensional TiO2 nanoparticles by gas phase CW CO2 laser pyrolysis. The laser synthesis process has been optimized for the deposition of highly pure, nearly mono-dispersed TiO2 nanoparticles on silicon substrates. Hard x-ray standing wave-field (XSW) measurements in total reflection geometry were carried out on the BL-16 beamline of Indus-2 synchrotron radiation facility in combination with x-ray reflectivity and grazing incidence x-ray fluorescence measurements for the determination of surface morphology of the deposited TiO2 nanostructures. The average particle size of TiO2 nanostructure estimated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was found to closely agree with the XSW and grazing incidence x-ray diffraction (GIXRD) results., 3 pages, 2 figure

We present a unified elucidation for the role temporal coherence properties of x-rays in surface x-ray standing wave analysis, under total external reflection condition. Analytical formulas have been derived that provide a direct relation between the intensity distribution of x-ray standing wave (XSW) pattern and complex degree of coherence of the incoming x-rays. The novelty of the proposed method has been demonstrated experimentally together with the theoretical results for a real application by analyzing the distribution of metal nanoparticles on a Si mirror surface. Our results demonstrate that the modified XSW approach opens up an opportunity to unambiguously interpret structural studies of large dimension nanostructure materials of height 200nm (or more), deposited on a substrate surface.

Total reflection x-ray fluorescence (TXRF) spectroscopy has seen a remarkable progress over the past years. Numerous applications in basic and applied sciences prove its importance. The large spectral background which is a major detrimental factor in the conventional x-ray fluorescence technique, limits the element detection sensitivities of the technique to ppm range. This spectral background reduces to a great extent in the TXRF technique due to the low extinction depth of the primary incident x-ray beam. In synchrotron radiation (SR) based TXRF measurements the spectral background reduces further because of the polarization of the synchrotron x-ray beam. Here, we discuss in detail the influence of synchrotron polarization on the spectral background in a fluorescence spectrum and its significance towards TXRF detection sensitivities. We provide a detailed theoretical description and show that how anisotropic scattering probability densities of the Compton and Elastic scattered x-rays depend on the scattering angle ({\theta}) and azimuthal angle ({\phi}) in the polarization plane of the SR beam.